Mania May Be a Mental Illness in Its Own Right

Hundreds of thousands of people experience mania without ever getting depressed. Why does psychiatry insist on calling them bipolar?

In October 1997, at the age of 58, David Ho had an unusual experience while listening to a recording of Bach. “I began to dance and pretended to conduct,” he says. “And as I practiced, instead of following the music, I felt as if I were creating it. I entered into a state of selfless oblivion, like a trance. My mind exploded. Flashes of insight rained down, and I saw beauty everywhere, in faces, living things and the cosmos. I became disinhibited, spontaneous, liberated.”

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